Clearwire leaders stated to PhoneNews.com on background that they planned to have all non-WiMAX markets upgraded by 2011. That was before the bottom fell out of WiMAX.
Fast forward to today, Clearwire has apparently halted all plans to expand WiMAX beyond its current coverage footprint. Clearwire, Sprint, and LightSquared are all putting together plans to roll out LTE in some wholesale concert, and WiMAX will remain in its current footprint, likely for years to come.
That leaves dozens of Clearwire deployments stuck in a painful limbo; LTE Advanced-ready hardware is likely a year out, at least, for many of these markets. And, worse, Clearwire has no intentions to upgrade these markets to WiMAX in the interim. Urban markets with existing WiMAX service will likely be the first to be upgraded. To help ease the pain, Clearwire to their credit has recently cut prices for service in these markets.
For users in these pre-WiMAX markets, service has fallen to a flat $32.00/month for 1.5 mbps and 2 mbps price tiers (for desktop and mobile cards, respectively). Unfortunately, the “mobile” ExpressCard and PCMCIA cards, as well as their desktop counterpart are the same dated cards from Motorola, which Clearwire was using four years ago.
With a lack of USB, or Mobile Hotspot options, many users are left toting desktop Wi-Fi adapters around to gain a connection which can be used with their modern-day devices. The demand for Clearwire service in most of these markets has dropped significantly as EV-DO and HSPA coverage has overlapped much of the legacy Clearwire footprint. With unlimited data plans and tethering, many users simply have no need for Clearwire’s services.
Despite Clearwire’s stated intentions to maintain, but not grow its store footprint, this lack of demand in legacy markets has resulted in the closure of most non-Clear 4G area retail stores.
Still, in many rural areas where Clearwire initially became popular, the offering is still a welcomed relief for users who have no access to DSL or other high-speed connections. 2 mbps is often multiple times faster than IDSN or low-speed ADSL connections, due to many still being long distances from a Central Office or DSL repeating station. Satellite Internet remains far more costly, and far more throttled than Clearwire’s own throttling endeavors.
Pre-WiMAX hardware is still sold at retail stores, by Best Buy, in Clearwire markets that have not been upgraded. The hardware is not sold online except via Clearwire.com, when entering in a zip code of a pre-WiMAX market.
Clearwire has declined to comment to PhoneNews.com officially, in regards to the estimated time of delivery for upgrading pre-WiMAX markets. The company did, however, confirm the price decrease to PhoneNews.com.
Article has been updated to clarify that Clearwire did offer an ExpressCard offering for pre-WiMAX markets. However, this variant is no longer publicized for sale, and can only be found by contacting Clearwire via telesales. Neither PCMCIA nor ExpressCard pre-WiMAX cards are compatible with Linux or Mac OS X.
Article has subsequently been updated with official comments from Clearwire Corporation.
I knew this was coming or going to happen. I wonder if this will lead to a class action lawsuit against Sprint that has sold Wimax devices to people who live in areas without Wimax with the promise that it would be rolled out to them in the near term.
This is not a concern. If you purchased a device it will work for the time estimated. By the time LD-LTE is fully rolled-out it will be time to renew contract with will mean new device, just like att does with the iPhone. Not sure what the big deal is. It’s like saying I will not purchased a computer because in 3 year a faster one will come out, wait let me restated in six months a faster computer will come out. Give clearwire some room to grown. Clearwire has partnered with the biggest mobile provider China Mobile, bigger than AT&T. What is the difference between LD-LTE and FDD-LTE. LD-LTE equipment is cheaper to built and its used around the world. I think the USA has the most retro-phone, excluding the iPhone. Asia leads on mobile innovations.
-Ray
Actually it’s TD-LTE, not LD-LTE.
“Fast forward to today, Clearwire has apparently halted all plans to expand WiMAX beyond its current coverage footprint.”
Apparently … except that here in Phoenix – which to my knowledge is the only city among the 10 largest in the U.S. that isn’t covered by Sprint/Clear 4G – Clear continues, albeit at a snail’s pace, adding pockets of 4G coverage. The most recent area here was added to their coverage map just in the past two weeks.
I have no idea what Clear is doing. Why would they be adding 4G sites if they’ve halted plans to expand WiMAX? Especially in an area like Phoenix where they don’t even sell their service.
Clearwire likely has contractual obligations that it has to meet with Sprint, the two companies did settle their relationship with a $1 billion payment to Clearwire. Much of that agreement entails (likely) performance goals and other requirements to expand the footprint.
That said, Clearwire has not announced plans to expand the WiMAX footprint. The Clearwire online coverage map even marks areas that they plan to expand into… except at present, that list is empty.
Sprint is also deploying WiMAX gear on their towers as part of their Network Vision rollout. It’s not clear if Sprint will be using their own WiMAX hardware, many (myself included) believe the addition of WiMAX to the Network Vision hardware was added in the potential event that Sprint buys out Clearwire, and then uses WiMAX as a stop-gap solution until they can roll out a superior revision of LTE to what AT&T and Verizon are using today.